pokemonfanatic

Look, its a really rough game, even by 1996 standards, but I think the criticisms toward this game are a bit overblown. Consider what they had to work with, a non-dualshock PlayStation controller, and they had to design a 3D platformer before the genre really even existed, to top it all off, Bubsy 3D had the unfortunate position of not only being released after Super Mario 64, but also after Crash Bandicoot. Against that competition, they never stood a chance. The game itself, again, is rough. Because Accolade opted for higher resolution as opposed to more detailed textures, the game's environments are basically made from solid color polygons, resulting in really flat looking environments. The camera is serviceable. it's locked in place behind Bubsy unless you hold the look button (L1 by default), which would solve the issue of having to fight the camera, if it weren't for the fact that the camera sits far too low! The camera basically sits directly behind Bubsy, which makes judging distance rather difficult since you can't see through Bubsy's big 'ol head! I feel like this was known to some extent, because the camera turns to point almost directly downwards when you jump, allowing you to line up your landing easier. Plus the game has a pretty generous ledge-grab mechanic, so making jumps isn't too terribly difficult all things considered. The controls are another point of contention, and while I don't know what they could've done to make it work well, tank controls are obviously bad for a collect-a-thon platformer. If you don't know what tank controls are, its a form of 3D movement using just a d-pad. Up and down go forward and back, left and right turn left and right, and Bubsy 3D even lets you do left and right sidesteps with L2 and R2 (which is admittedly helpful), simple enough, but it's sadly still not quite adequate. Bubsy can only turn or move, not both at once, and turning is SLOW (likely to make lining up jumps easier) so if you're wanting to move and turn simultaneously, you'll end up awkwardly shuffling your thumb back and forth on the d-pad between up and the direction your wanting to turn. I swear, sometimes it feels like half of this game is just SLOOOWLY turning Bubsy the direction you want him to face. Momentum in this game is also weird, but oddly faithful to the old 2D games. As you walk, you'll gain speed and eventually break into a sprint, but since you can't really turn, and pushing down on the d-pad doesn't slow you down very much, you'll probably end up smacking into walls far more than you'd expect lol. The game consists of 18 levels, there are 2 rocket parts in each level, and many atoms to collect (of which 100 will earn you an extra life). Getting all the rocket parts is how you get the best ending. Yes, this game has a lives system, I've not played much, so I don't know how punishing it is, but Bubsy (and thank god for this) can take 4 hits before losing a life, as opposed to the one-shot kills that plagued the 2D games. You still become dazed for a few seconds when hit, but you can't be hit again while dazed (again, thank god), so its fine. To wrap things up, the music in this game is actually pretty solid, the higher resolution mode actually does the games some favors (but more detailed textures still would've been preferred), and the game still has quite a bit of charm to it thanks to that music, Bubsy's character model, the cute enemy designs, Bubsy's voicelines (as annoying as they can be), and the odd-looking environments. Even though it's far from a good game, I had the feeling that the people who worked on this enjoyed it, you can feel the passion behind the game, even if the end product is far from perfect. I'd say to give it a shot. The game is deeply flawed, but I played it for about an hour and had some decent fun with it! If you're REALLY tolerant of early PS1 jank like I am, you may find that you enjoy Bubsy 3D despite its imperfections.

It's a surprisingly faithful port of FlatOut 2 to PSP! If you like FlatOut 2, you'll like FlatOut: Head On. Sadly, because of how intense **** FlatOut 2 is, the PSP struggles to keep up. The game seems to be capped at 30fps, but you'll frequently dip below that whenever there's many opponents on screen or if too many physics objects are being knocked around. If you really need to have FlatOut 2 on the go (and don't have a portable PC like a Steam Deck) FlatOut: Head On is a surpringly good (although still flawed) port of the classic arcade racer.

The ONLY reason this doesn't get a 10 is because MotorStorm: Pacific Rift is basically a better version of this. MotorStorm is a racing game unlike any other, you have multiple classes of off-road vehicles such as dirt bikes, ATVs, rally cars, mud pluggers, buggies, trophy trucks, and even big rigs. You take these supercharged off-road machines and race them on the most insane courses Monument Valley has to offer, each course containing multiple routes to choose from at any given point to suit your road-weapon of choice and many shortcuts to give you the competitive edge. 10 seconds into every race, every racer gains access to their boost which, unlike most other arcade racers, is infinite. Yeah, in MotorStorm you get UNLIMITED boost.. with one catch... y'see, the boost may be infinite, but it builds heat (shown by the boost bar on the bottom left corner) if the bar fills, your car overheats and explodes. So don't be afraid to use it, but use it strategically! While it's not too common for the game to let you choose your car class, each class does have their own strengths and weaknesses: Dirt bikes are quick, nimble, and can take many routes other, heavier vehicles, can't. This comes at the cost of being bogged down in mud and being supremely fragile, though. Stay on the higher routes, and be on-guard always. ATVs are similar to bikes. They're also very quick and nimble and can take more shortcuts, however ATVs don't get bogged down in mud like bikes do. This comes at the downside of being not quiiite as nimble as bikes are, and also still being very fragile. Buggies are a great all-rounder vehicles. They can take a bit of a beating, and have great handling and speed. Mud isn't friendly to buggies, but it isn't an outright hazard like it is to bikes. Buggies can also still be bullied by some of the heavier classes like trophy trucks and big rigs. Rally cars are also great all-rounder vehicles. They're more maneuverable and speedy than buggies at the cost of being slowed down more by mud. Again, though, steer clear of higher weight classes whenever possible. Mud pluggers, as their name suggests, are very well suited to muddy terrain. They're not the best handling, nor do they have the best top speed, but on courses with lots of mud, these heavy-duty buggies shine. Trophy trucks are one of the heaviest classes in the game, they can very easily clear bikes and ATVs out of the way and clear other obstacles in the road without much fuss. They do reasonably well in mud, and they can be pretty fast once they get going. Their biggest weakness is their handling, being much more slow and lumbering than most others. Big rigs are, simply put, terrifying. they may be slow to get up to speed and they may have the turning circle of a yacht, but once one gets up to speed not a single thing on the road is slowing it down. Not mud, not obstacles, and certainly not other racers. What big rigs lack in performance, they more than make up for in brute force.

Mafia having a 66 critic score is nothing short of a travesty. Mafia from 2002 is a quasi-open-world third person shooter, think GTA 3 but more on-rails and story driven. You play the role of Tommy Angelo, a humble taxi cab driver in 1930s America in the city of Lost Heaven, Illinois (a fictional city). One day you're caught up in the crossfire of a couple of mafia families and end up doing work for the Don Salieri family. You'll help with rackets across the city, you'll be a wheelman, you'll whack who needs whacked, you'll burn what needs burned, etc. Despite the game's age, the game's controls are great, they've held up extremely well. You can think of Mafia as the grandfather of cover shooters, as you will be ducking behind cover and using your arsenal of weapons strategically as you peek out of cover. There isn't a "go to cover" button like in Gears of War or Uncharted, mind you, so careful positioning is key to success! The cars feel great to drive too, they're based on old cars from the 20s and 30s, and the handling model is quite realistic for the time! The cars are quite slow, but these cars don't have very powerful engines, so that's to be expected. Oddly enough, this ends up making chases more tense than in most other games. The game has a police system kinda like GTA 3, speeding and running lights in front of officers or police cruisers will have the police try and pull you over to pay a fine (which just wastes time, you don't have to worry about money). If you resist for long enough, or commit a more serious crime like running into someone, the police will attempt to pull you out of your car to arrest you. If you EVER fire a gun, though, they will begin to use lethal force. First just .38 special revolvers, but if you continue to fire your weapon they'll begin using Thompson SMGs. There's also a speed limiter you can activate (by pressing F5 I think) so you can avoid accidentally getting pulled over. The city, for a game released in 2002, is quite lively! Yeah, the buildings are all blocky and low-res, but there's pedestrians walking around and police officers on the sidewalks. There's trains you can take around the city if you find yourself without a car, the cars around the city even change as the years go by, and as do the cars you're given to use. The city also has plenty of neat shortcuts and Easter eggs you can find for those who wanna look in every nook and crany (especially in Free Ride!) The story is where this game really shines though. It honest to god feels like playing through a classic mobster film, the cutscenes, despite being made with low-poly models have so much character and charm to them, and they set the mood of the story so well! It's worth noting that this game is VERY difficult past the first few missions. Tommy doesn't have very much health, and these henchmen and mob bosses you're being sent to whack are some real crack-shots, there will be quite a lot of trial and error, but stick with it. This game has one of the most satisfying endings I've ever experienced in a video game. So, do I recommend you play Mafia 23 years later? Yeah, I do, especially if you're accustomed to early 00's video game jank. Honestly I think you owe it to yourself to experience this absolute gem of gaming history start to finish. If you're not a fan of the blocky graphics, or want a more traditional cover-shooter, though, then Mafia: Definitive Edition makes for a more than suitable alternative, and the graphics in Mafia: DE are drop-dead gorgeous, so I really wouldn't blame you lol.

I don't get the hype about this game. It looks phenomenal, sure, the game itself is incredibly vibrant with tons of character. I absolutely DESPISE the handling model, though. The cars are incredibly stiff until they, without warning, break into a slide. I haven't found a way to reliably start a drift yet, so at the moment this game may as well be unplayable.

It's not for everyone, and if you're going to play it the Daggerfall Unity Project is the best option, but this game is truly vast and complex in a way that only CRPGs really manage to evoke. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is an ambitious RPG that expands upon its predecessor "Arena" with true 3D environments, more complex dungeons, a completely overhauled RPG system, and a game world so insurmountably large that you'll likely never see it all even if you put in a thousand hours of playtime. The Good: The game is incredibly complex, but is presented in a way that's fairly easy to understand. You have many different skills you can level, you have your basic RPG states like Strength, Agility, Endurance, Willpower, etc, and you have many different factions that you can increase or decrease your reputation with. In fact there's a full legal system where committing crimes will actually get you in trouble with the guards, if you submit to the guards you'll be sent to court where the severity of your crimes will increase your punishment (up to being banished from the city) and you can plea either guilty or not-guilty in front of a judge. In fact, something funny about that is that a high Etiquette skill (yes there's an etiquette skill) will give you better odds of being let go after a "not-guilty" plea. The magic system in this game is incredibly fleshed out and likely the most advanced (and absurdly powerful if abused) in the series. That's because of one thing, The Mages Guild. The guild, if joined, gives you access to the SpellMaker pretty early on and the Enchanter once you gain a high enough rank in the guild. The SpellMaker allows you to create a spell from scratch with your very own selection of up to 3 effects, and allows you to tweak the duration, potency, and effect chance, and these spells can be made to scale with the player with bonuses to each of these per level. You can then also tweak the damage type (if applicable) and the range of the spell (self, touch, single target ranged, or ranged area of effect). The enchanter is something I've not messed much with, but it can be used to make crazy powerful enchanted gear with the right items and enough gold. Thievery is rather basic, but still a pretty fun and easy (but risky) way to get gold early-on. You can pickpocket passers-by, but that's not very profitable, the big bucks are made by stealing from shops. If you wait until night you can pick the shops lock and then steal everything not nailed down. The very next day (assuming you weren't caught picking the lock by a bystander or guard) you can sell their stuff back to them for a pretty penny. You can also steal during broad daylight, but you need to make a check for it to succeed, and the guards will immediately swarm the place if you aren't successful. The game even has real-estate, if you're well enough off you can use your surplus gold to buy a building in any city that has a bank. It's a neat feature, but pretty barebones without mods. The Bad: Speaking of which, banks are an interesting feature that hasn't really returned in TES, That's probably for the best though because they are utterly broken in Daggerfall. It sounds really neat on paper, gold has weight, so having a place to store it and take letters of credit and take loans makes sense. In practice, it doesn't work very well. Loans can be taken up to 50,000 gold and must be repayed within a year plus 10% interest (sounds good so far). If you don't do that, debt collectors and guards will be sent to deal with you, pestering you where-ever you are, as long as you're within that province. You see, these debt-collectors can't follow you into other provinces, so if you take a loan from a province that isn't important to the main quest (such as Tulune, which neighbors Daggerfall), then you basically just have 50,000 gold with the stipulation that you can't ever go to that province again, annoying, but well worth it. Also the dungeons and the world in general is fairly lackluster. All of them (with the exception of certain cities and dungeons relevant to the main quest) were procedurally generated, meaning there's not much variety. Dungeons especially suffer from this as they all look basically the same, making them very hard to navigate at times. If you play Daggerfall Unity, I recommend selecting the "Smaller Dungeons" option. I'm also not fond of how side-quests work. There's always work to be done at guilds, but your character isn't always capable of doing them. This becomes an issue since when you talk to a guild quest-giver, the quest you're assigned is random (though you are free to decline) so you need to keep talking until you get the one you want. Again, this is fixed with the unity port. I highly recommend you check out this gem of a 90s CRPG through Daggerfall Unity. Go ahead and pick you out some mods too while you're at it. It is a Bethesda game after all lol.

For the purposes of this review I'll be talking about the "OldUnreal" release of Unreal Gold. For a game that released in 1998, the game plays really nicely with very little needed to get it playing on modern hardware. A lot of the graphical effects, models, texture work, and lighting still look pretty good imo. Movement is nice, combat is fun, the weapons are punchy, the sound design is well done, as well as the level design being generally solid for a shooter made around the same time as Quake 2. The story is barebones, but that's kinda to be expected since Half Life hadn't released yet. My only real issue with the game is that the UI can't be scaled up to fit modern displays. If you want to play Unreal at 1080p or higher, the UI is gonna be pretty small, which is annoying, but you kinda get used to it after a while.

Gex is a great platformer with great visuals, great music, interesting mechanics, and a whole lot of late-90s charm. Its a time capsule of pop culture references. The only complaint I really have with it is that despite the fact it released the same year as Mario 64, it still uses an antiquated password system for saving progress (that you have to find in the level by collecting cassette tapes). Not to mention, running out of lives means starting the WHOLE game over. For a game this challenging and this long (24 levels that are generally pretty lengthy) it comes across to me as overly harsh for an otherwise pretty chill game.

I recognize the significance of this title as a pioneer of 3D open world games, but aside from playing it out of curiosity... don't bother. And I say that as someone who likes this era of games, Mafia, Max Payne, Halo CE, Deus Ex, Half Life, they're all better put together than GTA 3 imo. The Good: The open world is pretty fun to drive around, its decently detailed for a game of the time, and the city is pretty densely populated, always plenty of pedestrians and cars around. The radio stations are pretty good, mostly classic rock and pop, with some electronic, drum & bass, and others thrown in. The game also establishes the sense of humor that it's sequels are known for. Cutscenes are well made and the voice acting is pretty good. Vehicles feel pretty good to control, they're nice and weighty while still feeling responsive and fun to drive. The damage model for those cars is also something not a lot of games were doing at the time, so it's nice to see. The Bad: Controls on foot are stiff and awkward both with KB&M or controller, gunplay leaves much to be desired considering how well that was implemented for Max Payne, and the wanted level system is flawed. GTA 3 uses the same 6 six star wanted level system the series had been using up until GTA 5. At one star you get police on foot, with 2 you get cruisers, with 3 you get roadblocks and helicopters, etc. The problem is, that only the one star wanted level can be removed by shaking the police. Anything higher and police cars will spawn out from thin air and you'll rely on pickups that lower your wanted level, or have to get into another car/respray your car when you've made some distance. This is a problem because the game will force you, fairly early on, to drive slow cars with a wanted level. Which makes the whole central mechanic of the game extremely annoying.

Game is at times fun, but flawed in some ways that really let it down. Namely, the car physics and handling. Brakes feel like they do nothing, and when you're flying towards a sharp turn at 120+ mph those are kinda important. AI opponents drive like you don't exist, causing lots of unneeded frustration as drivers slam you into walls. To add to this, the collision physics are very wonky. Cars feel like they both have next to no weight to them and are as heavy as a tank at the same time. Hitting anything, even stuff like traffic cones launches your car into the air or moves your car around a little, but at the same time, hitting an object will send it flying several feet, idk it's weird. The game has a neat Pong loading screen though, so +1 point for that. Honestly, just play Midnight Club 3.

I played the original on Genesis for the first time recently, since I had always heard that this was one of the best games on the system. The visual style is incredible, everything looks like it jumped right out of a 90s Saturday morning cartoon and it just oozes character, but the gameplay leaves much to be desired. It can be difficult to tell which parts of a level are actual level geometry, or just a background or foreground. Enemies, even early on, are very unforgiving, and can stun-lock the player or keep them stuck for a few seconds while an animation plays of the enemy tearing Jim to pieces. Controls don't feel very responsive, especially when ropes are involved, but I do like the way you aim the blaster with the d-pad. The blaster itself feels great to use, it's powerful and snappy, but Jim's whip attack (what you'll mostly be using) is extremely inconsistent and takes like half a second to actually use. All of these combined results in a game that looks incredible for the Genesis, but feels like you have very little control over, which makes for a frustrating experience.

A decent dirt-bike racing game I guess, literally Excitebike but 3D, a side effect of this is that collisions are very harsh. It feels like the slightest impact with another driver will send you off your bike and careening into a barrier. Which makes for some pretty annoying racing in my opinion. For the NES game this made sense, the tracks are very wide and you can see where everyone is since it's top-down. Here, the tracks are more narrow, and other racers can sneak up on you trying to make a pass which just causes YOU, not the person overtaking, to fall off the bike. Also don't enable Hi-Res in the options menu or you'll have single-digit FPS for races.

All all-around great arcade racer for PlayStation! Despite it only really being a Need for Speed title for marketing reasons, it somehow manages to be my favorite NFS on the console. The game is split into 4 modes; Arcade, V-Rally Trophy, Championship, and Time Trial. The first 3, of which, have multiple difficulties you can unlock, as well as bonus cars as rewards for victories, this gives the game a decent amount of content, and a good sense of progression. As you might expect from an NFS title, there are plenty of iconic 90s racing machines. From the Citroën Xsara to the Subaru Impreza and Ford Escort, this game has quite the variety of rally cars to choose from. The driving, as well, is stellar for the console. Cars feel quick and responsive while not going so far as to be twitchy like Test Drive 4. The stages, while still circuits like in V-Rally 1, have much more variety in the layout and weather conditions, the pace notes are also a welcome addition, but sadly are not always accurate, and can lead to the player being blindsided by a corner not properly called-out. Something I especially appreciated, being more accustomed to modern control layouts for racing games, was the ability to modify controller bindings in the main menu. Lots of racing games at the time had counterintuitive control layouts, so being able to make your own is always a welcome feature. When it comes to PS1 racing games, V-Rally 2 is truly one of the best out there, up there with the likes of Gran Turismo, Wipeout, and Colin McRae Rally. It may not look the best by today's standards, but give it a shot, you may find that you enjoy it as much as I do!

It's an alright arcade racer, however it suffers from it's presentation. Don't get me wrong, the game looks great for a PS1 title, but the game presents you with cars ranging from the late 1920s to the mid 1950s and gives you the opportunity to "sit behind the wheel of these incredible classic cars" (that's from the back of the box btw). These cars are famous for being incredibly difficult to drive due to the small skinny bias-ply tires they use, but the cars in-game zip around like they're on rails and can stop on a dime! These cars handle more akin to modern F1 than mid-century sedans and grand tourers! If that's how this game was presented, I'd be fine with this, but this game sadly is not what I was led to believe.

It's ok for a PS1 racing game. I can honestly say that it at the very least plays better than the first couple of Ridge Racer games but thats not a terribly high bar. My biggest complaint is that the suspension is super squishy, so you'll find yourself rolling over a lot. This is such a major issue that they have dedicated buttons to flipping yourself back over (L2 and R2). Aside from that the game boasts a decent variety of cars and circuits, the tracks even have shortcuts you can find to give you a slight advantage. Plus it has some extra controller configs depending on what control scheme you might prefer, which is nice.

This is my first 10/10 on Metacritic, and I reviewed Ocarina of Time. This game is literal perfection in arcade racer form. The soundtrack is perfect, the graphics are perfect, the events are perfect, the feeling of smashing an opponent into a semi truck at 160mph, oh you better believe that's perfect. This game is what all other arcade racers must measure up against. It is the gold standard of the genre. It doesn't matter if you get it on PS2 or XBOX, (or on something else if you catch my drift) just get this game. It's one of the only two games I have 100%'d.

A master class in game design. The graphics? Perfect for the time and still hold up decently well. The sound? Flawless. The controls?almost perfect, only thing I'd change is making the iron boots equipable to the C-buttons. The puzzles? Tricky and satisfying to figure out. Story? Classic, 10/10. Honestly, the only reason this is a 9 instead of a 10, is simply that the water temple exists. That one dungeon is a stain on what is otherwise a phenomenal game that you owe yourself to play if you're a fan of any Zelda game.

There are a few nitpicks such as Mario's turning circle and some parts of Mario's moveset may not be described in the most clear way, but this game was an incredible debut into 3D for Mario. The game still looks good enough because of its stylized cartoonish graphics, the gameplay and sound design is as solid as ever for official Nintendo titles, and they basically nailed 3D movement on their first try here and it still feels nice to play thanks to that (*cough* Tomb Raider *cough*). I highly recommend trying this game out for yourself, it's a delightful "collectathon" platformer with hours of content thanks to its 120 stars to collect across many different levels. This game, you may notice, also created Mario's modern moveset with the somersault, the double/triple jump, long jump, ground pound, dive, wall jump, and backflip all making their first appearance here!

I respect this game as a piece of gaming history as a transition to 3d gaming environments and controls, but it has not aged well. Graphics are very dated, even for PS1 standards, the controls are obtuse "tank controls" and makes it difficult to use regardless of if you're using analog or d-pad, and the puzzles/traps can require you to be quick with this terrible control scheme. The game was very ambitious, and I respect what they've done for the industry, and the fact that it created a franchise that I do enjoy. If you want to experience the story of Tomb Raider remade for newer consoles, try "Tomb Raider: Anniversary."

Super fun futuristic racer set in the year 2048. You pilot hi-tech racing hover ships from 4 different teams (AG-Systems, Auricom, Qirex, and Feisar) each specializing in different areas. You race them through 7 increasingly challenging tracks on 2 different Tournaments (Venom GP, and the faster Rapier GP). You and your opponents have many items they can pick up (like Mario Kart) such as: rockets, missiles, mines, shields, turbos, and shockwaves. My only gripe is that 3 of the 4 teams' crafts are very hard to control. If you pick this up, use team AG-Systems' ships, they have comparatively tight handling and more than enough pace in a straight line to keep up.

This game deserves nothing less than a 10. The only thing bad about it is that it's too short! All planes feel excellent to control, you can equip two from a multitude of weapons at once, these weapons feel great to fire and each have their own strengths and use cases! The missions are all super fun and can actually provide a pretty serious challenge on "veteran" difficulty. The art style is just delightful, they somehow capture the lighthearted cartoony aesthetic of Peanuts and mix in some WW1 grittiness to it. The music in this game, too, is nothing short of masterful. I wish I could find who composed this soundtrack because they are INCREDIBLE. I'd say get this game, but sadly it's been delisted for 8 years now. We really need a remaster of this beloved XBLA title.

It takes GT1, and improves upon it in every way. Track count? More than doubled. Car count? Over quadrupled! Visuals? Vastly improved over the first game. Physics? Better there too, with more accurate vehicle handling than the original. GT2 also adds a rally mode to the game including the famous Pikes Peak Hillclimb in all it's pixelated glory. The only reason this game doesn't have a 10, is because a rushed development cycle left a few annoying bugs in the final release. One of which is that when tuning your suspension, the ride height is labeled as "inches" but the units weren't converted from millimeters, so the game ends up telling you your car's ride height is 130 inches. Just little nitpicks like that, it's a little rough around the edges but it's a phenomenal game despite that.

There's a reason this series effectively birthed the sim racing genre. It's a great game, holds up quite well even to this day and the progression is as solid as ever. The sheer variety of cars, tracks, and modifications means that pretty much all playthroughs of Gran Turismo will be truly unique. You can't really name another series on PS1 that had economy cars like the Mazda Demio and fire-spitting racing machines like an LM tuned Dodge Viper GTR sharing the same CD. Despite the many things I love about this game, including the fact that it's the origin of one of my favorite game series, I do still have a few gripes. This was their first outing, so I have to cut them some slack, but the physics can feel a bit off at times, especially on high-power sports cars. When you brake, the nose of the car is supposed to dip, as you're putting more weight on the front suspension. This does happen, but in a way more extreme manner than maybe intended. Cars will frequently bottom out under heavy braking which can easily cause the car to slide as the back end threatens to overtake the front. This can be mitigated by "feathering" the brake, and stiffening the front dampers but the lack of analog control on PS1 does hurt here, thankfully this was addressed in GT2. Also the opponent AI borders on braindead and will simply ram into you mid-corner instead of even trying to take a different line. If you're in front this hardly matters, but if you're having to fight through to the front, this can be very frustrating as the opponents drive as if you do not exist. Now for a bit of a controversial take, I don't mind the license tests in GT. License tests in GT are series of small driving challenges that you must complete in order to be given a license, these licenses (B license, A license, and International A license) are required in order to access certain events. Sure, they're a royal pain when you're playing through as a veteran player, but these license tests are invaluable for teaching people unfamiliar with racing principles how to drive not only cleanly, but quickly and efficiently. One might argue they should've made it optional, but people are quite likely to skip a tutorial when given the option. Give this game a go, it's one of the weaker entries nowadays, but it's still a boatload of fun.

For those that don't know, this is a precursor to the newer "Tokyo Xtreme Racer" series, and it's first 3D installment. This game nails the vibe of highway street racing in Tokyo through the use of a floaty chase camera that gives a sense of motion and weight, and a rockin soundtrack that keeps you pumped the whole way through. The cars are all fun to drive and inspired by JDM classics like the Mazda RX-7 and legendary Toyota AE86. The game offers a surprising amount of depth to performance customization, several types of turbos, mufflers, tires, aero parts, intakes, shocks, sway-bars, and many more allow you to tailor the car to your own driving style. The cars are all fairly responsive, and feel great to drift around corners. In my opinion (and I know, it's heresy) it feels better to drift in this game than in most Ridge Racer games (it ties R4 imo). It takes a while to get used to it, and I encourage you to rebind the default controls to something else, but once you do get used to it, it feels really good. There's something just so deeply satisfying about pulling off a perfect drift, especially when you just barely miss the wall or just pass by a traffic car or bus. Which reminds me, the AI opponents are surprisingly...competent. In most racers of this era, opponent AI was basically non-existent, they'd largely stick to one of a few set routes and if you were in their way, too bad. But in this game they're quite adaptive and spacially aware. They'll actively avoid traffic cars, and if you get in their way they'll try and find a gap past you instead of shoving you out of the way (something Gran Turismo 1 & 2 are pretty guilty of). The visuals, too, are fairly impressive for the time. They don't technically use licensed cars, but the models are high enough fidelity that you can easily tell what they're supposed to be, the environments, are also well modelled, and fit the theme of Japanese highways to a tee. All in all, this is a technological marvel for a PS1 game released in 1997, and I highly recommend you try it, especially if you're a fan of the Tokyo Xtreme Racer series, or Initial D.

Ridge Racer Type 4 is one of, if not THE best racing games on PS1. After 2 games where they reeeally butchered the handling (RR: Revolution and Rage Racer) they FINALLY got it right and wow does it feel nice! I love the direction they went with the series too, you choose one of 4 racing teams to choose your difficulty, one from France (Beginner), one from Japan (Intermediate), one from Italy (Hard), and one from America (Expert). Then you choose one of 4 car manufacturers, 2 of them have grip handling, Terrazi (Japanese) and Age Solo (French) and 2 have drift handling, Assoluto (Italian), and Lizard (American). Each team has their own unique story, and people in the story will also act differently towards you depending on your performance during the GP. it's really well done, and I wish more companies would put this kind of effort into their games nowadays. The graphics are unparalleled for the PS1, nothing else comes close on this system, not even Gran Turismo 2, which was made IN HOUSE by Sony at Polyphony Digital. And the soundtrack and art direction in this game man, it a whole vibe, you just have to play it to understand. Get This Game.

They've improved upon the Ridge Racer formula here with a few championships to complete, multiple track layouts, and the ability to buy new cars and purchase a tune up for any you own. This, however, is where my praise ends. They absolutely botched the car handling in Ridge Racer Revolution (the previous title), and while they improved upon it slightly here, they're still infuriating to control, which is bad when you're playing an arcade racer! If the handling was more in line with the first or fourth game, this would be a treat to play, since it's not, though, just stick to Type 4.

I'd like the game in theory. I love ridge racer, and this (theoretically) just takes that and improves it with more cars and tracks. However, they also tampered with the physics model. I wasn't a fan of how cars tended to snap oversteer after a drift in the first game, but now they've dialed that up to 11 and made cars far more prone to slipping. This imo just makes driving nigh impossible.

The final level of the game is complete and total BS, but the game aside from that is top tier. I'd go as far as to say one of the best games on the PS1, and it holds up well even today. The graphics (for the time) are very well done. The car you drive feels weighty and (for the time) pretty realistic. The missions are (almost) all super fun and the chases are pretty exciting, though they can be annoying since you can't end the mission without losing the cops. That last point is one of the reasons why the last mission is BS, the cop spawns are way too frequent, making it nigh impossible to get through to the end in one piece.

A solid, albeit flawed, arcade racer from NAMCO. Of course the sense of speed is great and announcer in the game is always pretty fun, there are a couple of gripes that hold the game back for me. First off, the drifting feels inconsistent, if you try to drift around a corner, there's a 50/50 chance that when you come out of the drift you'll snap directly into a wall. Cars take way too long to grip once they straighten up from a drift as well, which doesn't help. This phenomenon only gets worse the lower a cars "grip" stat is. This game also suffers from a lack of course variety. You have 2 variants of a single track, and that's it. Oh, also for whatever reason the slightest bump on a wall or other car will brush off nearly half of your speed which is super annoying. All those gripes aside, this game still manages to be a pretty fun racing game! And I really like the Galaxian arcade game on the loading screen (pro tip: if you can beat that loading screen game you'll get a few bonus cars!)

If you've ever wondered where NAMCO's Ace Combat series originated, here you are! And despite it being on PS1 and the dated graphics, it plays very well! The sense of speed is immense and it's super satisfying to hit missile shots at supersonic speeds. The planes control very well and do have differences in handling and durability that may make them more useful in some missions than others. My only real gripes are that machine guns feel pathetic and you cannot do inversions, I tried to do an Immelmann turn and I ended up just going straight up and stalling my jet lol. It's a super fun game though, highly recommend trying it out.

It takes What was great about Portal, expanded upon it, gave it better graphics, and a very thick story compared to the first game. the new laser and laser redirection cube were a nice addition as were Wheatley, the gels, the lightbridges, and the tractor beams and of course keeps the Masterful voice acting and witty jokes. Its amusing to hear how snarky GLaDOS can get in the beginning of the game. The difficulty curve of the puzzles are nice and steady but i will say it does get VERY difficult if turrets are involved it doesn't take as long for them to start shooting and they're placed more strategically than in the first game if you want some advise then try placing a portal behind them and a portal somewhere else get behind it and tip it over whenever you can. if you can't do that do what i like to call the death from above maneuver where you drop something on them.

I've got to say even though this game is about as old as me the game holds up today it's still absolutely beautiful and hilarious it can be tough at times but you just gotta push through. the portal concept changes the way you think about these puzzles same for the turrets and other hazards also GLADoS's lines are absolutely genius. that said the game IS short but there were bonus levels if the haters would have looked for all of 2 minutes. those people who rate this anything less than an 8 don't know what they're talking about. as GLADoS would say "I'm making a note here, huge success, it's hard to overstate my satisfaction."

this is my first and probably one of my favorite sonic games it's fast fun and has new cool features that you wont see in any other sonic game but that's not to say it isn't without any faults one does come to mind which is in the turning speed that sends you into walls at high speed if you aren't careful but if you are than this is a solid sonic game